linking

Let it be on record that in late 2008, the New York Times decided linking to other sites is acceptable for respected journalism operations. The headline, meant to be the replacement of the town crier, is heavy and sluggish with decrescendo: “Mainstream News Outlets Start Linking to Other Sites.” I’ll save you the trip to the calendar. No, we haven’t time-warped back to the Nineties.

Although it takes less than 15 seconds to create an outbound link, some people will spend quite a bit more time agonizing over the ramifications.  Now, Google's issued a blog post about outbound links, and the company's official stance amounts to "relax."

Chinese search engines Baidu and Sohu face millions in penalties as Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music demand satisfaction over links to songs controlled by the labels.

Wiep Knol put together a fantastic document on internal and external linking values.

Eric Ward doesn't mind pointing out that of the top ten Google results for "link building expert" his name pops up six times. Call it good keyword branding if you like, bust most in the SEO industry will tell you he's earned his title. Because of that, it might sting a little more when he pens a lengthy I told you so about linking strategies.

Google has made their web-based email client Gmail more accessible in their recent update.

It's been a couple of weeks since it became apparent that Google was penalizing link directories – at least a few of them – knocking them out of the SERPs even for their own business names. There's still no official word from Google on this, but there is plenty speculation that it wasn't algorithmic.

When emails like this come from amateurs it’s one thing, but when they come from so-called SEO professionals…